The Witch of Cologne (41 page)

He groans out loud, then reaches for his customary glass of Madeira. Hoping to be transported to some Valhalla where he will no longer be conscious of the loneliness and guilt which infuses his whole being, he drinks the wine swiftly. The culinary pleasures that once delighted him are now rendered bland and tasteless by sorrow.

While his back is turned, a hand reaches up from under the bed and pulls down the dead gamekeeper’s clothes, swiftly tugging them out of sight.

Oblivious, the count lies back and stares at the flickering candle that sits on a carved chest beside the French doors which open onto a wooden balcony. Below lies a walled courtyard lined with orange trees imported from Spain; he used to sit there with Hermann each day, breaking the morning bread. Smiling, he remembers his lover’s laughter, the way it would burst from a shy placidity, a silence the count used to find truculent until he realised Hermann was a man who spoke with his body and hands but would always struggle with words, as if he found the complexity of language itself an unnecessary hindrance. It was enough for the count when the gamekeeper used to reach out suddenly in the middle of a half-formed sentence or a smile and take his lover’s finer hand in his own huge bearlike paw. Language is for scholars and effeminate courtiers who have little else, the count thinks, turning onto his side as a mysterious drowsiness seeps through his blood. He stares at the candle flame. It splutters then becomes a red glow which begins to throb with a strange intensity.

Transfixed, he surrenders to a detachment that makes him feel as if his body is lifting up from the bed. It is as if Mars himself is reaching down with his strong muscular arms and gathering the count to his manly bosom, he could almost stick out his tongue and lick the salt off the bronzed shining skin of the war god.

‘Gerhard…’

His lover’s voice emerges from the velvet darkness, its seductive timbre tickling the back of his mind.

‘Hermann?’

The count struggles to sit but finds that a great weight seems to be pinning him down. He turns his head: a man stands in the doorway of the balcony, his great broad
shoulders and flowing hair silhouetted against the night sky of Cologne.

‘Hermann…could that possibly be you?’

The ghost says nothing. A cool breeze drifts through the open doors bringing with it the unmistakeable aroma of worn leather, sweat and the faint scent of hounds, the smell of the pack the hunting master took with him always.

‘It is you, Hermann. Could this be a miracle?’

‘No miracle, my knight, but a manifestation to please you, to comfort you in your grief. But to keep me here you must shut your eyes and silence your doubts for fear of driving my spirit away. Lie back and allow me to pleasure you.’

How articulate and softly spoken Hermann has become now that he is an angel, the count notes dreamily as he falls back against the pillow. His heart races as his gown is untied. His lover’s hands, the calloused palms achingly familiar, run up his naked legs. The long strong fingers massage his thighs, the soft skin of his groin, touching him everywhere except his cock, which, now standing, quivers under the warm breath of his lover.

‘Hermann, Hermann,’ he murmurs, ‘you were my life, my reason for being.’

As his lover’s burning mouth finally closes over him, taking him as he always did with unbearably slow strokes, the count, arching in ecstasy, fastens his fingers in Hermann’s hair. Overcome by pleasure he does not notice that the texture is not even remotely similar to the hair of his dead hunting master.

‘Slowly, slowly,’ the count moans, sitting up, eyes still squeezed tightly shut. Unnoticed, a tiny stunted hand creeps under the pillow and swiftly removes the large key.

The actor, a dwarf affectionately known as La Grande, carefully places the key between his teeth then crawls along the floor to the door. He glances back at the bed where
Alphonso, wearing a horsehair wig and Hermann’s gown with its padded shoulders, crouchs over the count performing fellatio. Winking at his colleague, La Grande reaches for the doorknob.

Outside, Ruth and Detlef stand on the landing, immobile like ice sculptures, too afraid to move. Holding their breath they wait at the door of Gerhard’s chamber. Ruth’s amulet hangs around her husband’s neck, hidden under his shirt. Suddenly the door swings open. Detlef, clutching his dagger, lifts it ready to strike. Just before he is about to plunge down, La Grande, his large misshapen face shiny with excitement, pops out like the Punch from a puppet show. The performer gestures lewdly then, grinning, drops the gleaming key into Detlef’s free hand.

The three of them creep silently to a door at the far end of the corridor. Detlef slips the key into the lock and turns it. The door pushes open with a sudden creak. They freeze.

Nothing. The household slumbers still.

Jacob lies on a small straw pallet in the corner of the room, clutching his toy rabbit. A china washing bowl and jug stand beside the bed, a bowl of half-eaten whey thrust to one side.

Ruth runs over and wraps her arms around the sleeping child. ‘Jacob? Jacob!’

She cradles him, resting his tousled head against her bosom, while Detlef kneels beside them, running his hands over the child to search for any injury.

‘Mama?’ Jacob opens his eyes sticky with sleep. ‘You took a long time to come. I have seen four mornings since and yesterday uncle told me he had sent a carrier pigeon. Is that why you’re here?’

‘No, child, we’re here to take you back home to Amsterdam. But you must be a good boy and keep quiet all the while, until we are inside the coach.’

‘I have been brave. You will be proud of me. But where’s Uncle?’

‘Uncle is sleeping and we have to be very quiet so as not to wake him,
mein Ayzer
,’ Ruth whispers, aching with love as the warm smell of Jacob’s sleepy body encompasses her.

Detlef wraps his son in the blanket and picks him up. As he does, the leather thread around his neck breaks and Ruth’s amulet slips off unnoticed, its fall broken by the soft pallet. The boy curls up against his father’s shoulder, his hot arms winding around Detlef’s cool neck. Led by La Grande, the three make their way along the wooden landing and down the servants’ stairs to the back door.

Alphonso, stripped of his costume but still in the horsehair wig, stands waiting for them.

‘The count sleeps but the hemlock will soon wear off. You must hurry, there is a cart beyond the city gates.’

The skinny performer arches his body then executes a few sharp dance steps in the vain attempt to warm himself. The straw hat slips rakishly over his head as the empty street echoes with his tapping feet. Suddenly he stops, remembering that he is not meant to be drawing attention to himself and the ramshackle cart beside him. Those were Alphonso’s instructions: wait for them at the gates, look like a dumb farmer from south of the Rhine, be prepared to drive as far as the Dutch border and there’d be an extra twenty Reichstaler in it and a better role in the next production. Cheered by the thought of a major part, perhaps even that of a heroine, the ungainly performer—far better suited to comedy—slouches into instant anonymity.

‘Hugo!’

He swings around at the sound of his name, a pencil-thin fool spinning like a maypole in the dawn mist.

Alphonso, followed by La Grande then a woman and a man carrying a child, emerges from the shadows. ‘Anyone see you?’ the actor asks anxiously, peering down the Roman wall that leads out of the city towards the west.

‘Nothing but the owls and a few drunks who thought I was the rat catcher,’ Hugo replies, pulling idiot faces at the sleepy child who finally laughs much to the clown’s delight.

Detlef examines the simple cart, a mere frame covered by sackcloth. Stinking of pig shit, it resembles the roughest of animal transport. ‘They are to travel in this?’

Alphonso lifts the sackcloth. Inside is a comfortable pallet; blankets and a basket of fruit and cheese sit in the corner.

‘The pig shit is a decoy, to deter the curious. Trust me, you shall be in Holland by nightfall.’

‘Not I—my wife and child.’

Behind Detlef, Ruth moans involuntarily, her deepest fear realised. Horrified, she steps forward. ‘Husband, you must come with us.’

Detlef hands the sleepy child to her. ‘Take Jacob, I will join you later.’

She looks at him blankly, not fully understanding. ‘That was not the plan.’ A terrible sensation of déjà vu reverberates through her, the way Detlef is looking at her now, his eyes full of love yet determined.

‘Ruth, I have to stay. There is much I must resolve with my brother.’

‘Have you lost your reason? He took our child! Do not let him take you as well. You must leave with us now, you must.’

‘If I leave now I will be betraying everything I have fought for, I will be denying the possibility of redemption. He is my brother. I cannot leave without an explanation. It will not take a moment and it will be comfort for a lifetime. I shall be safe, my love. I will join you in less than half a day. Wait for me at the border.’

‘Detlef, no! I fear…’

‘Please.’

He searches her face for understanding. She has to allow him this, he thinks, for without forgiveness he cannot maintain his faith and that would be a living death. He is at the mercy of her decision and yet there is only one way for her to decide if their union is to survive.

The moment stretches until at last Ruth, reading all in his face, takes his hand and kisses it, then closes his fingers over the kiss.

‘We shall wait for you then, just over the border.’

Loving her more than he has ever done, he presses his lips to hers.

‘Take care of our child. I will join you within the week.’

He walks with her towards the cart.

‘May love protect you, my husband.’

Without glancing back, Ruth climbs up, helped by Alphonso and La Grande.

T
he spy, Georges,
huddles in the doorway of a bakery three doors down and across from the count’s townhouse. Fuck this weather, the winter will be bad if it is this cold in October, he thinks. Shivering, he wonders whether he should send his manservant out for more burning peat in the morning. Deciding that he will, the informant pulls his wide-brimmed hat further over his freezing ears. As an owl hoots in the distance he glances back at the aristocrat’s dwelling.

Several shadows move across a pool of moonlight. Georges leans forward, squinting as he tries to penetrate the darkness, muscles tense with expectation. The silhouettes shorten as a pack of stray mongrels emerge silently from the gloom and trot swiftly around a corner.

Disappointed, the spy swings his gaze back to the house. Just then the dull glow of a candle flares in an upstairs bedroom, illuminating the shape of a tall man wearing a hat passing the window. By Georges’ calculations he has a quarter
of an hour left. Pulling his cap low, he sprints towards the cathedral.

The knife glints as a sliver of moonlight catches its blade. The tip presses into the soft sagging neck of the drugged man, pushing as far as it will go without breaking the skin. The white pores stretch and flood pink at the point where steel meets skin.

Detlef has been crouching over his brother for what seems like hours. His stilled body, motionless like that of the hunter, is deceptive for within him a momentous struggle is taking place.

He could kill him so easily with one swift cut to the throat; it would be almost painless. He wants to, there is an instinct within him screaming with rage, a silent diatribe that roars from his thudding heart to his pounding brain. His brother stole his child from him; he has almost destroyed all that Detlef has fought for. But to murder is a sin, it would reduce his soul to less than an animal. Regardless, anger, revenge and blind fury surge through him like a torrent.

Finally Detlef lifts the knife away and stands, trembling violently. Lifting a jug of water he throws it across his brother’s face. Gerhard groans, opens his eyes, then rolls to one side to vomit onto the woven rug next to the bed.

Somewhere in the room the count can hear a voice. His brother’s. For a moment he struggles to remember the sequence of events: a memory of Hermann…the sense of him, his touch, mouth, face come drifting back. How is that possible? The man is dead, you sentimental idiot, long gone, the count chastises himself. Finding that his thoughts still spin, making it difficult to form a cohesive image, he realises he has been administered an opiate.

‘Gerhard!’

Blearily the count turns his head. In the dim light he can just make out his brother’s profile as he leans over to light a candle. The flame flares up and, as Detlef crosses the room again, Gerhard can see that he holds a naked blade in his hand. The aristocrat tries to swing his leaden legs off the bed but finds he cannot move.

‘Are you to kill me?’ His words, slurred, hang in the stale air.

‘I tried but found I could not. To do so would reduce me to as lowly a creature as yourself.’

The count labours to pull himself upright. ‘How predictable of you to hide behind that moral superiority of yours. It is all you have ever done your entire life, Detlef. You never had any sense of reality, always hiding behind the skirts of the church, only emerging to play the noble crusader. Well, what real morality lies in your actions? Have you truly examined your soul? You have betrayed both your race and your title.’

‘I have betrayed nothing. I am guilty of nothing except following the logic of my heart.’

‘Idealistic fool. You have no idea, have you? They are threatening to take the lodge, our lands, the von Tennen title. Three hundred years of ancestry obliterated, just like that. And all because of your stupidity!’

‘You would sacrifice your own brother?’

‘There is no sacrifice, all they want is a public repentance. Besides, the family is more important than your paltry ethics. The lineage must go on.’

Witnessing the unquestioning conviction of the zealot that makes ugly his brother’s face, Detlef has to muster all his strength to stop himself attacking Gerhard there and then. Instead he takes a shuddering breath.

‘I forgive you your ignorance and pray that one day you may find enlightenment.’

A sudden thud is heard downstairs, then the sound of running footsteps as soldiers burst into the house. Detlef glares at Gerhard with absolute disdain before bolting for the door.

The moth, a stubborn creature with inky-blue wings that are barely distinguishable from the soot that covers the walls of the prison, crawls slowly but with immense determination from the great cold outside through the narrow hole between the granite blocks. It emerges from the tunnel, its furry antennae waving blindly. Delighted to discover a draught of warmer air, it takes off, fluttering around the prison cell until it alights for a moment upon the grimy hand of a man.

Detlef, gazing down, wonders if the fragile creature might live longer than himself, and if, by some wondrous sorcery, it might squirrel him out through the minuscule crack to freedom.

My love,

My foolishness has landed me in this hell. My brother has betrayed me, and with this treachery I fear he has bartered my life.

Forgive me my impetuosity. This trait has led me to tragedy, but also to great joy for without it we would never have come together and I would never have found my soul’s work.

My dearest, I pray that you and our child have crossed safely into the sanctuary of the Netherlands and that soon we shall be reunited. I know not what my future holds but I take solace in my belief that they cannot dare to execute a Wittelsbach. The worst I fear is a forced conversion
—
they will ask me to betray my new faith. Yet there must be some means of escape…

‘Canon?’

Groot peers through the prison bars. His old master is staring at the wall, mouthing a silent missive.

Detlef whirls around at the voice. Despite the long hair and the peppering of a new beard, Groot recognises him immediately.

‘I am a plain pastor now, Groot. The title canon does not apply.’

‘So the rumours are true, you are now a follower of Calvin?’

‘I am a preacher with the Remonstrants. I travel the Low Countries with a simple sermon.’

‘You married the witch?’

In a second Detlef’s lean form is against the bars, his hand thrusting through grabs Groot’s throat. ‘Respect, my good sir! She is my wife.’

Groot’s eyes bulge as he chokes under Detlef’s steel-like fingers.

‘My apologies…’

Detlef drops him. Stumbling, Groot claws at the neck of his cassock, loosening it. Detlef pauses then steps back to get a better view of his old assistant.

‘You look well, Groot. You have become a substantial man.’

The cleric, older and more portly than Detlef remembers him, regains his composure.

‘Herr von Fürstenberg treats me with respect. But honour and ease are seldom bedfellows.’

‘I know the proverb, but of the two I would choose honour.’

‘Maybe, but it is you who are now on the wrong side of the bars. They will kill you, Detlef.’

‘I am cousin to the archbishop. They would not dare.’

‘It would have served you better not to blaspheme so loudly. You have become too noisy a critic to go unheeded.’

‘Groot, help me…for the sake of our friendship.’

‘You would beg?’

‘All pride is false modesty. I am a father as well as a husband. I want to live.’

Groot stares at him, noticing a new humility in the aristocrat’s eyes.

‘I will pray to
my
God for you. Perhaps he will be more forgiving than your gaolers.’

He turns and walks slowly back down the dim corridor.

‘Groot! Groot!’

‘Please address me by my new title: Canon Groot,’ the priest announces to the shadows, too frightened to turn around for fear his old master will see his tears.

Seated with the archbishop in his carriage, Carlos watches as the narrow crowded streets give way to muddy lanes on the outskirts of the city and then to neat cultivated fields, all still within the walls of Cologne: chequerboards of yellow and green, cabbages growing next to wheat. So there is natural beauty here, Carlos concedes reluctantly. A growing excitement fills him despite his inherent misanthropy. They have the renegade preacher incarcerated. A few turns of the screw and the witch shall be his. The notion thrills him to the marrow. He has agreed to the forthcoming encounter only as a courtesy to the archbishop. He has discovered that he has developed a begrudging affection for the drunken buffoon, helped greatly by his delivery of the heretic canon, of course. The meeting is a mere formality, the inquisitor reassures himself. Once over, he will be able to interrogate the criminal preacher and then finally Sara’s daughter will be his. By the time the driver pulls up outside a rambling farmhouse built a good few centuries before, Carlos is swept up in a reverie of exhilaration.

The truculent farmer leads the two clerics to an ancient barn, its ivy-covered exterior deceptively innocuous. Inside, beyond a row of stalls filled with restless cattle—a deliberate line of concealment—the floor of the barn lowers dramatically into a gambling pit. To Carlos’s amazement, over a hundred men are assembled there, all of them gamblers. It is here that the archbishop has brought him to meet with the count.

Gerhard von Tennen pushes his way through the crowd, watching all the time for the archbishop and the inquisitor. ’Tis a strange place to rendezvous, the count thinks, but knows he is in no position to protest.

In the straw-covered pit a badger squats growling, its long elegant snout twitching with terror. It runs back and forth, unable to escape for its tail is nailed to a heavy plank of wood.

‘Ten Reichstaler on the pug!’ the pit-master shouts, pointing to a small bull terrier snarling at the end of its owner’s chain.

Gerhard shakes his head. Turning, he catches sight of Maximilian Heinrich, who in the dress of a merchant is barely noticeable amongst the spectactors, a motley gang of bürgers, students and journeymen united by one obsession: the love of the wager.

The count sidles up beside the archbishop. ‘I did not know whether you would meet with me.’

‘Gerhard, you are my brother in blood and faith. Of course I would grant you an audience.’

‘In such a strange place of worship?’

‘Ah, but I chose the place for you. The joy you take in gambling is legendary, cousin.’

The peasant beside the archbishop throws off his hood to reveal the sombre visage of the inquisitor.

‘Good day, sir. It promises to be a fine competition. The creature with the torn ear, they say, already has three badger pelts to his name.’

Gerhard glances over at the small snarling pug whose squashed face is a battlefield of fighting scars. The dog, having caught the scent of the badger, is almost delirious with fury, snapping and growling at all who approach, while the badger, larger but with a disposition that is only vicious when cornered, has edged as far away as it can given the bleeding flesh of its tail.

‘I shall back the badger. I have seen these creatures fight, their tenacity is not to be underestimated.’

Gerhard throws three gold coins into the badger’s corner then turns back to his companions.

‘But tell me, how fares Detlef?’

Heinrich reaches into his pocket and holds out a signet ring with the von Tennen crest engraved upon it. The count, with a sharp inhalation, recognises it as Detlef’s.

‘He is experiencing the hospitality of the cathedral’s dungeon while awaiting trial. But he is in good spirits, so they say,’ the archbishop tells him, sorry for the obvious dismay that fills his cousin’s face.

‘But can you guarantee a fair tribunal?’

‘The Inquisition is always just for it acts according to the will of God,’ Carlos answers, pushing between the two men. Ignoring him, the count continues to direct his appeal to the archbishop.

‘Heinrich, promise me he shall suffer nothing more than a forced conversion, a signed confession of repentance. Surely that will satisfy Rome, Vienna and the Inquisition?’

Heinrich avoids the count’s eyes. ‘I can speak only for Vienna.’

At a nod from the inquisitor the dogkeeper holds up the animal. Carlos reaches over and with an expert hand assesses the muscles in the canine’s forelegs.

‘Tell me, count, what would you wager for your brother’s life?’ The inquisitor looks up from the beast.

‘Nothing that I have not already gambled.’

‘Come now, I have heard you are a bigger gamester than that.’

The count glances at the badger, it is larger than the pug and on close inspection already bears the marks of previous victories across its striped furry back. For a moment it seems to stare back at the aristocrat, a surprising intelligence gleaming in its bloodshot eyes. Gerhard looks at Heinrich: there is nothing in his face to hint that this might be a game. Is this what Detlef’s life has been reduced to, a mere wager? Suddenly the enormity of his treachery tumbles down upon him. He is worse than Judas, he thinks, and a seeping dread begins to sicken him.

‘You promised there would be amnesty for a Wittelsbach.’

The archbishop turns away.

‘Look, the fight is about to begin. Make your wager. Detlef von Tennen’s life if the badger wins.’ Carlos’s soft voice cuts under the shouting punters.

The count glares at the inquisitor, every muscle in his body flexed for revenge. Should he accept the wager or simply run the inquisitor through here and now? But what would that achieve? They have Detlef at their mercy.

Despite himself, the rising adrenaline of the gambler surges up, a pounding excitement that battles his logic. Just one win and they will defeat both church and state together, himself and his brother, free to begin a whole new chapter. Should he play? What choice does he have? The badger looks strong and fierce, it will defeat the pug—the creature is half its size. The wager will be easily won.

Gerhard throws ten coins into the pit.